Leonard Cohen Poems
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Leonard Cohen Poems (Amazing Poems from a Sage)

 Leonard Cohen Poems are amazing and Leonard Cohen is known for his clear, prophetic, and somewhat expressionless music. Reading this collection is what you need to understand what real poetry is.

Leonard Cohen Poems

Leonard Cohen Poems

Behold an evergreen artwork in the dress of great poetry. Cohen has the ability to grab the universe by it balls.

Millennium from “Flowers for Hitler”

This could be my little

book about love

if I wrote it–

but my good demon said:

‘Lay off documents!’

Everybody was watching me

burn my books–

I swung my liberty torch

happy as a gestapo brute;

the only thing I wanted to save

was a scar

a burn or two–

but my good demon said:

‘Lay off documents!

The fire’s not important!’

The pile was safely blazing.

I went home to take a bath.

I phoned my grandmother.

She is suffering from arthritis.

‘Keep well,’ I said, ‘don’t mind the pain.’

‘You neither,’ she said.

Hours later I wondered

did she mean

don’t mind my pain

or don’t mind her pain?

Whereupon my good demon said:

‘Is that all you can do?’

Well was it?

Was it all I could do?

There was the old lady

eating alone, thinking about

Prince Albert, Flanders Field,

Kishenev, her fingers too sore

for TV knobs;

but how could I get there ?

The books were gone

my address lists–

My good demon said again:

‘Lay off documents!

You know how to get there!’

And suddenly I did!

I remembered it from memory!

I found her

pouring over the royal family tree,

‘Grandma,’

I almost said,

‘you’ve got it upside down–‘

‘Take a look,’ she said,

‘it only goes to George V.’

‘That’s far enough

you sweet old blood!’

‘You’re right!’ she sang

and burned the

London Illustrated Souvenir

I did not understand

the day it was

till I looked outside

and saw a fire in every

window on the street

and crowds of humans

crazy to talk

and cats and dogs and birds

smiling at each other!

The Only Tourist in Havana Turns his Thoughts Homeward

Come, my brothers,

let us govern Canada,

let us find our serious heads,

let us dump asbestos on the White House,

let us make the French talk English,

not only here but everywhere,

let us torture the Senate individually

until they confess,

let us purge the New Party,

let us encourage the dark races

so they’ll be lenient

when they take over,

let us make the CBC talk English,

let us all lean in one direction

and float down

to the coast of Florida,

let us have tourism,

let us flirt with the enemy,

let us smelt pig-iron in our back yards,

let us sell snow

to under-developed nations,

(It is true one of our national leaders

was a Roman Catholic?)

let us terrorize Alaska,

let us unite

Church and State,

let us not take it lying down,

let us have two Governor Generals

at the same time,

let us have another official language,

let us determine what it will be,

let us give a Canada Council Fellowship

to the most original suggestion,

let us teach sex in the home

to parents,

let us threaten to join the U.S.A.

and pull out at the last moment,

my brothers, come,

our serious heads are waiting for us somewhere

like Gladstone bags abandoned

after a coup d’état,

let us put them on very quickly,

let us maintain a stony silence

on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

READ ALSO!!!

I Have Not Lingered In European Monosteries

I Have Not Lingered In European Monosteries

and discovered among the tall grasses tombs of knights

who fell as beautifully as their ballads tell;

I have not parted the grasses

or purposefully left them thatched.

I have not held my breath

so that I might hear the breathing of God

or tamed my heartbeat with an exercise,

or starved for visions.

Although I have watched him often

I have not become the heron,

leaving my body on the shore,

and I have not become the luminous trout,

leaving my body in the air.

I have not worshipped wounds and relics,

or combs of iron,

or bodies wrapped and burnt in scrolls.

I have not been unhappy for ten thousands years.

During the day I laugh and during the night I sleep.

My favourite cooks prepare my meals,

my body cleans and repairs itself,

and all my work goes well.

READ ALSO!!!

Now of Sleeping (Leonard Cohen Poems)

Under her grandmother’s patchwork quilt

a calico bird’s-eye view

of crops and boundaries

naming dimly the districts of her body

sleeps my Annie like a perfect lady

Like ages of weightless snow

on tiny oceans filled with light

her eyelids enclose deeply

a shade tree of birthday candles

one for every morning

until the now of sleeping

The small banner of blood

kept and flown by Brother Wind

long after the pierced bird fell down

is like her red mouth

among the squalls of pillow

Bearers of evil fancy

of dark intention and corrupting fashion

who come to rend the quilt

plough the eye and ground the mouth

will contend with mighty Mother Goose

and Farmer Brown and all good stories

of invincible belief

which surround her sleep

like the golden wheather of a halo

Well-wishers and her true lover

may stay to watch my Annie

sleeping like a perfect lady

under her grandmother’s patchwork quilt

but they must promise to whisper

and to vanish by morning –

all but her one true lover.

READ ALSO!!!

Beneath My Hands (Leonard Cohen Poems)

Beneath my hands

your small breasts

are the upturned bellies

of breathing fallen sparrows.

Wherever you move

I hear the sounds of closing wings

of falling wings.

I am speechless

because you have fallen beside me

because your eyelashes

are the spines of tiny fragile animals.

I dread the time

when your mouth

begins to call me hunter.

When you call me close

to tell me

your body is not beautiful

I want to summon

the eyes and hidden mouths

of stone and light and water

to testify against you.

I want them

to surrender before you

the trembling rhyme of your face

from their deep caskets.

When you call me close

to tell me

your body is not beautiful

I want my body and my hands

to be pools

for your looking and laughing.

Leonard Norman Cohen, a novelist, playwright, musician, and poet, was a very talented and versatile writer.

Before starting a career as a singer-songwriter in music, he was already pretty well-known for his poetry. He is widely regarded as one of history’s finest songwriters, and countless other musicians have covered his tunes.

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